ABSTRACT
Due to their small size, self-assembled quantum dots offer an excellent opportunity to study the physics of highly-confined few-electron systems. This chapter investigates the quantum mechanical properties and electron-electron interaction within a single quantum dot as well as in vertically coupled quantum dots, using a realistic structure with electron interactions treated within the density functional theory. The number of electrons in the dots is controlled by applying a voltage to a metal gate on top of the device. The strain tensor is obtained from the minimization of the elastic energy of the system. The presence of the shear strains in the InAs-GaAs interfaces leads to the appearance of a polarization charge and its associated piezoelectric potential which reduce the symmetry of the system, lifting some of the degeneracies calculated for unstrained pyramidal quantum dot systems.
